


What Isn't Said

by panavatar



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling, Dreams, Exploring the TARDIS, Gen, Grief, Loss, Nightmares, Sleep, The Doctor Sleeps, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-01
Updated: 2012-08-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 04:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/474562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panavatar/pseuds/panavatar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is learning the value of silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Isn't Said

**Author's Note:**

> Written 06/01/2005.

Rose is learning how to wait. She's got a million questions but when she forces him to answer it _hurts_ , not just him, but her, in the way it hurts to discipline a child who didn't really mean any harm.

He'd be all alone without her, and even though he's got a time machine he can't go back and change that, any more than she could have kept her dad alive. She still doesn't understand exactly how or why it came to that, to the end of all his people, and sometimes the not-knowing drives her half-crazy, because she feels like she's known him forever but she really doesn't know him at all. But she has to be patient, because she can't ask any more.

She can't stand the broken look in his eyes. She can't take what she needs from him. He's the Doctor, but he's also the one who needs healing.

* * *

Rose was trapped in a dream where the door slammed shut before she got there and the thing that she'd tried to help was right behind, and the Doctor couldn't (wouldn't) save her and this was **it** for her, it, and she'd never know why. Every time she turned to look at it, every time she said, _It wasn't your fault. I wouldn't have missed it for the world_ , everything started over again. And every time she didn't know how it would end.

* * *

Rose wakes up. By now she's used to not knowing or caring about day or night. Her room is always lit, though it dims when she lays down and brightens when she stands. It's an odd pink-red glow that makes her think of her mom's old movies. _Camelot always looked a little pink to me._

The Doctor had grinned when he first led her in. "Rosy. Get it? Like it was made for you." Maybe it was. The TARDIS is full of surprises.

She doesn't like to sleep any more. She always has nightmares. When she wakes up, she never remembers what they're about, but she's left cold, and empty.

Rose still gets lost in this place sometimes. She suspects that the hallways change every once in a while. Once she went to the kitchen, which she'd been to often enough, and opened the door to find a strange, dusty old room with a whole rack of multicolor scarves on one wall and a pile of physics textbooks stacked at the foot of the unmade bed.

She didn't ask the Doctor about it.

It's like that this time, a bit. She's headed for the console room, because the Doctor always seems to be fiddling around on something in there, but when she turns the familiar glass (well, it looks like glass) doorknob it's...oh.

She's never seen the Doctor sleep before. She thought maybe he didn't.

He's half on his stomach with his knees tucked up, the dark sheets pooled down over his hips. His leather jacket's flung over a nearby chair; if he's wearing anything, it's not much at all. He's sort of twitching in his sleep, a little like a big floppy dog. It's very endearing.

Pulled by some impulse she doesn't stop to examine,  Rose walks in and up to the bed. Is it a bed? It's a bit--alien. No headboard, no frame at all, and oddly...not solid? She touches it, hesitantly, and stifles a gasp because it's **warm** and **pliant** and maybe...alive?

Then she jumps again because the Doctor's saying to her, "Rose. Close the door," but then she turns and looks and he's still asleep. She goes and closes it just to be safe.

When she comes back the Doctor's got a look on his sleeping face like he's sick, like he's fighting down bile; and then it changes, again, expression horribly blank as he seems to shiver all over. His teeth pull into a grimace, and he gives a kind of howl, a mournful pained little sound that lingers in the air of his dim room. What's going on behind those eyes? _What does he see?_

Rose thinks about her own dreams, what little she can remember, just pain and fear and loss and regret, and she grabs at his hand where it's clenched against his chest. "Doctor?"

" _Rose_ ," he says, instantly, almost before she's done speaking, and his hand opens and closes, encasing hers in a steadfast grip, in what seems like less than a second.

He's still asleep. "Oh," she whispers, as if she's realized something, when really she only has more questions.

Rose stands there and watches him, watches several emotions move across his face, as he continues to hold onto her hand for dear life. Pretty soon her back starts to ache--she's in a very awkward position--and when he still shows no signs of letting her go, she makes a decision.

"I suppose a bit more sleep won't kill me," she announces, and unceremoniously, with the aide of her free right hand, climbs over the Doctor. She stretches herself out on the sheets behind him, left arm draped over his waist.

The bed thing is still weird. It conforms to her body the minute she relaxes, but not like those magic foam mattresses she's seen on TV. This is almost like the thing is wrapping around her a bit. It would be soothing if she could be sure what it's doing is harmless. As it is...well. She just snuggles closer to the Doctor and hopes for the best. If it hasn't done anything to him yet, it probably won't bother anything that's attached to him, either.

* * *

Rose doesn't know how long she slept, but she didn't have nightmares this time. She still seems to be almost in the same position, and right now it feels very very **right** to be there, too, like she's always been there. She keeps her eyes closed and holds onto that sensation for as long as she can.

When she does spare a look around, it's to a surprise. Her arm's still over the Doctor's waist but her hand isn't holding onto anything, just flat against the smooth muscles of his back. He's facing her and he's awake and he's been **watching** her.

"Rose," he says quietly. Their faces are very close and her hand's low enough on his back to be **sure** he isn't wearing anything. 

_Don't ask me how I got here,_ she begs silently. _Don't ruin it. Someday we'll both be ready for questions, but please, not now._

"Doctor," and she smiles, more nervous reflex than anything, because any second everything could change and nothing like this might ever happen again. "Sleep well?"

The look in his eyes is very--weighty--like he's holding back something immense and unspeakable. _They're all gone, Rose._ "Better than usual." His voice cracks. "You?"

"Same, thanks." And then their conversation, such as it is, becomes this strange unbreakable _thing_ , just the two of them looking at each other and not saying any of the things they want to say and it's--

It's too much. In the way the Doctor himself is sometimes too much. Rose calls it _too alien_ when it's just him, but what name can she give it when it's both of them together? There's a feeling in her that's almost like panic, like the eye of a fierce storm, and no matter what it really is it's definitely too much.

Slowly, very carefully, Rose leans into him, not severing their locked gaze until she has to, as her head inclines to rest against his chest.

And that's it. The tension calms down to something closer to comfort. It's just the Doctor, the last lord of time, and Rose Tyler, along for the ride, and the TARDIS spinning across the universe and back again. It's this one moment. It's enough.


End file.
